Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation: Improving alloreactive Bw4 donor selection by genotyping codon 86 of KIR3DL1/S1

KIR3DL1 is a natural killer (NK) cell receptor that recognizes the Bw4 epitope of human leukocyte antigen (HLA) class I molecules. Following hematopoietic stem cell transplantation for patients lacking Bw4, KIR3DL1-expressing NK cells from Bw4-positive donors can be alloreactive and eliminate tumor cells. However, KIR3DL1 alleles having T instead of C at nucleotide 320 (encoding leucine 86 instead of serine 86) are not expressed on the cell surface. Thus, not all individuals testing positive for KIR3DL1 are optimal donors for Bw4-negative recipients. Therefore, we developed a method for genotyping codon 86, which was validated by its perfect correlation with NK cell phenotype for 100 donors of diverse KIR3DL1/S1 genotype. We typed 600 donors and found that ∼12.2% had the KIR3DL1 gene, but did not express cell-surface KIR3DL1. By contrast, high-expressing allotypes were identified when haplotypes from four families with duplicated KIR3DL1/S1 genes were characterized at high resolution. Identifying donors who have KIR3DL1 but lack cell-surface KIR3DL1 would refine donor selection. With this technique, the number of individuals identified who may not be optimal donors for Bw4-negative patients increases by threefold, when compared with standard methods. Taken together, we propose that allele typing of killer cell Ig-like receptor (KIR) polymorphisms should become a standard practice when selecting donors.